ShawneeDispatch.com

To the editor:

Council member Dan Pflumm's statement (Dispatch, Aug. 13) is so full of holes as to make a piece of Swiss cheese look like solid steel. Anything I am about to say can be verified by reviewing the minutes of Shawnee Council meetings on June 23, July 14 and July 28.

First Mr. Pflumm states that informal meetings can enlist support for city's needs and goals. This is true, if you know who you are meeting with.

Over the course of the three Council meetings neither Mr. Pflumm nor Council member Straub were sure whether they met with two or three Senate staffers. Names were used based on business cards in Mr. Pflumm's possession (which leads me to believe that neither of them made any contemporaneous notes for use as follow up). One of those names proved to be of a person who never attended the dinner.

His statement at the Aug. 11 Council meeting finally gave the correct names. He also says that these individuals can verify that. What Mr. Pflumm fails to mention is that it wasn't until the July 28 Council meeting that he finally found out who he really had dinner with. And how did he find that out? Because I provided an e-mail from Sen. Pat Robert's office denying that any member of that office was there, and then summarized a phone call with a member of Sen. Sam Brownback's office who supplied the correct names.

He would like folks to think that these were simple mistakes. I do not consider these simple mistakes. I consider them negligence and a complete lack of due diligence. If a Council member does not know who they had dinner with, how important can that dinner be? In view of the fact that our Council members do not dine every day with Senate staffers, this event should have stood out in their minds. If one does not know who they had dinner with, how can they follow up to see if their discussions have produced any results? This now makes me wonder what was discussed at that dinner.

Ray Erlichman

Shawnee